FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
103 
ORANGE TREE SCALE. 
By Cyrus W. Butler. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
I was surprised to find myself upon our 
program for a paper upon Scale, for hav¬ 
ing sold my grove interest and even left, 
temporarily, at least, the land of the best 
orange, I had considered myself dis¬ 
charged from the army of those who bat¬ 
tle against the enemies of the citrus; 
but I feel pleased to be remembered by 
my companions of old and, being at pres¬ 
ent in the land of that best orange, will 
take one more shot at the enemy, even 
though it is a “hot air” one and along 
lines that have often been over before. 
In approaching the subject, I do so with 
a sense of incompleteness of knowledge; 
but when I recall one orange grower, 
whom I found killing lady birds, and who 
offered me one dollar apiece for every 
scale that I would find upon his badly 
infested trees, and again another who, 
in advocating a certain insecticide, stated 
that when applied to orange trees, the 
scale could at once be seen leaving the 
tree in clouds,—I reflect that there are 
degrees of lack of knowledge of this, as 
well as other subjects. 
By the word “scale,” the Florida or¬ 
ange grower usually means the purple 
or oyster shell scale (mytilaspis citri- 
cola), which is the only species that oc¬ 
curs throughout Florida in sufficient 
numbers to constitute an important fac¬ 
tor in the culture of the citrus, but is 
not now so dreaded a pest as it was be¬ 
fore its natural enemies had bec®me 
numerous, for we hear the oldest of 
growers tell of a time when orange 
groves were not only killed by them, but 
the entire business threatened. 
With its life history most of us are 
more or less acquainted, but all of us are 
most interested in methods of making 
their lives entirely historical, and I will 
mention such methods as are known to 
be of value. 
These methods come under three 
heads: first, Prevention; second, Natural 
Enemies; and third, Insecticides. 
PREVENTION. 
In the multiplication of scale, like that 
of all life, food is one of the great fac¬ 
tors, which the orange tree best furnishes 
these parasites when the bark is soft and 
juicy, with large pores, this condition is 
most often brought about by using an ex¬ 
cess of nitrogen, and most especially when 
of an organic nature, such as stable and 
hen manure. Even a moderate amount of 
nitrogen of this class is almost certain to 
cause an increase of scale, and quite cer¬ 
tain to do so if used in connection with 
clean culture, which by admitting the air 
to the soil, causes rapid nitrification of 
the ammonia present in the manure. 
Also we remember how, after the 
freezes of 94 and 95, the fast growing 
sprouts from the roots of the frozen- 
down trees were afflicted with scale 
throughout the State. 
As to the idea of this pest being in¬ 
creased by poverty of soil and neglect of 
cultivation, I must differ even with such 
authorities as our much respected Hub- 
